December 13th - St. Aubert, Bishop and Confessor

This great prelate was one of the greatest ornaments of the seventh age and
eminent promoters of learning and piety in the Gallican church. His youth, that
most precious season of life, he dedicated to God by the mortification and the
absolute conquest of sensual appetites; he was careful to employ all his time
usefully, and was proficient in sacred learning. Having with great zeal served
the church for many years, he was consecrated bishop of Arras and Cambray on the
24th of March, in 633. Though solitude, in which he conversed with heaven, and
consulted God about his own necessities, and those of his people, was his
delight. Yet he knew what he owed to others; his door was always open to persons
of all ranks and conditions, and he was ever ready to afford every one all
comfort and assistance, spiritual and corporal, especially the poor, the sick,
and distressed. With extraordinary watchfulness and sagacity he discovered the
roots of the disorders which reigned among the people. His prudence and zeal
applied the remedies, and all the obstacles he met with, he surmounted by his
courage and constancy. His instructions, supported by the wonderful example of
his own life, had incredible success in reforming the manners of his abundant
flock. It was the first part of his care to train a virtuous clergy, and to
qualify them for their sacred functions by learning and good habits. Ignorance,
especially in those who are the teachers of others, is a most fatal enemy to
virtue. A rooted and experienced piety being necessary in all youth, that when
they attain manhood and are exposed to the dangers of public life in a corrupt
world, they may be able to resist the influence of vice and bad example. St.
Aubert converted to God innumerable sinners, and induced many persons of quality
of both sexes, to renounce the world.

The great king Dagobert often resorted to the saint to be instructed in the
means of securing an eternal kingdom. He listened to him with respect and
attention, always rejoiced exceedingly in his heavenly conversation, and
received from it the greatest comfort and edification. Out of respect for him he
bestowed on his church the royal estate and manor of Oneng. St. Landelin was
drawn by St. Aubert's tears and prayers from apostasy to a religious state. From
a most abandoned course of life into which he fell, at the head of a troop of
licentious soldiers, or rather robbers; and in expiation of his crimes, he
founded four monasteries. In 653 at Lobes on the Sambre, in Haynault, which was
long very famous; but being secularized, the canons removed their chapter. In
1408, to Binche, three leagues from Mons, towards Charleroi. In 686 leaving St.
Ursmar abbot of Lobes, he founded the abbeys of Ane, St. Guislain's, and
Krespin, near Valenciennes, in which he died. St. Aubert gave his benediction to
St. Guislain, and blessed his cell on the river Hannau or Haine, (which gave
name to the province,) in the place which since bears his name, but was then
called Ursdung or Ursidonc, i. e. Bear's Kenne.

The blessed count Vincent, called in the world Madelgare, his wife the blessed
Waldetrude, and her sister St. Aldegundes, received the religious habit from the
hands of St. Aubert, and the latter founded the monastery of Maubeuge, the
former that of Mons. Our saint built himself many churches, and some
monasteries, as Hautmont, in 652, &c.

He performed the translation of the relics of St. Vedast at Arras in 666, to a
church at that time outside the walls of the city, and St. Aubert laid there the
foundation of the great monastery which still flourishes. It was soon after most
munificently endowed by king Thierry or Theodoric III, who, dying in 691, after
a reign of twenty-one years, was buried in this monastery with his second wife,
Doda, where their monuments are seen to this day.

By St. Aubert's zeal, religion and sacred learning flourished greatly in all
Haynault and Flanders. Having worthily sustained the burden the episcopal charge
for the space of thirty-six years, he died in 669 and was buried in St. Peter's
church, now a famous abbey of regular canons in Cambray, which bears his name.
It was founded in 1066, by St. Lietbert, bishop of Cambray, who also founded the
Benedictine abbey of St. Sepulcher in Cambray, and died on the 23rd of June,
1076. St. Aubert's shrine is the richest treasure of this magnificent church and
abbey.

His festival was kept from the time of his death on the 13th of December, as
appears from the most ancient calendars of that and neighboring churches. From
the Libellus Annalis Domini Bedre Presbyteri, published by Martenne from a
manuscript of St. Maximin's at Triers, upwards of eight hundred years old.
(Anec. t. 3, colt 637,) &c. This festival is a holiday at Cambray, where are
also kept two other annual feasts in his honor: the elevation of his relics when
they were first enshrined on the 24th of January; and that of their translation
the 5th of July. When Guy or Guiard of Laon was bishop of Cambray, William the
abbot of St. Aubert's in 1242, removed them into a new rich shrine which was
built by Thomas, a goldsmith of Douay, as we are informed by an inscription on
the shrine. From which time this feast has been kept. The same inscription
mentions that this shrine was enlarged and improved in 1275 by James, a
goldsmith at Eskierchin, then a considerable town. Gerard I, the learned and
zealous bishop of Cambray and Arras, about the year 1020 employed the most
eminent Doctor Fulbert to write the life of St. Aubert. This could be no other
than Fulbert the celebrated bishop of Chartres, who died in 1028, and had been
fellow-scholar with Gerard, in the great school at Rheims under Gerbert of
Orleans, afterwards archbishop of Ravenna, and lastly pope Sylvester II. This
life of St. Aubert is given imperfectly by Surius: copied in manuscript entire
with notes and preliminary disquisitions, by M. Henry Dionysius Mutte, dean of
the metropolitical church of Cambray and vicar-general of the diocese. He added
three authentic relations of miraculous cures of persons struck with a palsy,
blind, lame, &c., with a particular detail of the circuмstances of each, wrought
by the intercession, and by the touch or presence of the relics of St. Aubert:
the first written under the same bishop Gerard and by his order.  The second was
compiled in the eleventh; and the third relation of miracles in the twelfth
century, in part by eyewitnesses. We have also an account of miracles wrought by
the intercession of this saint in the parish church of Hennin Lietard, in which
is preserved the relic of his jawbone.

We have another accurate life of St. Aubert in the Chronicon Camaracense et
Atrebatense, published by Dr. Colvenerius at Douay, in 1615, under the name of
Baldericus, bishop of Noyon and Tournay. But the author declares that he had
been brought up and had always lived in the service of the church of Cambray,
and that he wrote it by the order of his bishop, Gerard. Whereas the clergy of
Noyon, in their letter concerning the election of Baldericus, to the clergy and
church of Arras, (apud Balus, Miscell. t. 5, p. 309,) assure us that he had
always lived in the church of Noyon. Baldericus of Noyon was only a boy when
Gerard died. The author of this Chronicon afterwards compiled the life of St.
Gerry, as appears from the preface. See Boschius the Bollandist, Praev. Comment.
in vitam S. Gaugerici, 11 Aug. Also see the life of St. Aubert, written by a
monk in Mabillon, Act. Ben. t. 2, p. 873.


Quote:
"A soul truly resigned to God has no affection for any created thing, for it
sees clearly that all its possessions, except God, are vain and nullity. So its
single object and aim is to die to itself, and resign itself actually and always
in all things
-Bl. Henry Suso

Bible Quote
13 Let no temptation take hold on you, but such as is human. And God is
faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able:
but will make also with temptation issue, that you may be able to bear it. (1
Cor. 10:13)